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Liberace’s Lover
In response to my piece Understanding Liberace: Grooving with the Fey Heckler, CNN writes:
We are delighted that Scott Thorson, who claims to be Liberace’s lover, is going to appear on Larry King Live this Wednesday. We would like the promote the interview extensively. I am in charge of promoting it via the Internet and ask for your help.
Would it be possible to promote on your website Scott Thorson, Liberace’s lover, on Larry King Live? This would be done by putting on your web site something as simple as “Watch Scott Thorson discuss being Liberace’s lover for the full hour on CNN’s Larry King Live on Wednesday, June 12th, 2002 at 9 p.m. EST. For more information, please visit www.cnn.com/larryking
All the best,
Eleanor Spektor
Soviet Propaganda
Ack packet via : Fantastic Tom Waits interview.
Global Currency
Attention globalization fans (you know who you are): The Global Country of World Peace has released its own currency, called the Raam. One Raam = around US $10. According to the Maharishi, the appearance of the Raam marks the onset of a harmonious, peaceful world. One love, one heart, one wallet. Yay!
See also: The Popup Ad Campaign From Hell : “It’s the latest in Web marketing innovation: Hijacked Web surfers, exploited Web browser vulnerabilities and malicious spyware all wrapped up together.”
Wasabi Peas Verdict
After lunch, purchased one pouch of Royal Orchids Wasabi Coated Green Peas — “A Happy Present from the Earth.” Recent controversy in LiveJournal indicates that people either view wasabi peas as some form of hell-spawn or as a simple tasty treat.
After failing to open the packet via the provided tear-off mechanism, resorted to scissors. Inserted one green and beige wasabi pea into mouth and sucked. First, brief impression was of sweetness. This sensation lasted approximately one second but was quickly supplanted with the familiar “blinding sheet of pain racing up the front of my face” sting of wasabi. However, unlike wasabi paste sting, the sting of the pea was extremely short lived. After crunching into the pea, its own nutty, bready flavor combined with both the sweetness and the wasabi. The combined flavor experience was very pleasant.
I have now eaten several dozen of the suckers, and will likely consume the entire bag by 3:00 if someone doesn’t stop by to share them with me, and if I don’t start bleeding from the gums (whichever comes first).
Verdict: Wonderfully intriguing mixed flavor experience, recommended either as a zesty snack or as a plucky conversation starter.
Chrissy Caviar
This is one of the more interesting art projects I’ve seen in a while – mock marketing of human eggs as consumer item – human caviar – as commentary on reproductive pressure on women in their late 30s. Provoked a pretty good discussion between Amy and I. Read article before forming opinions.
Seeing Bill Clinton
Went to see Bill Clinton speak today. The J-School sponsored the event, but it was held in Zellerbach Hall. Cool to see Gray Davis, Orville Schell, and Bubba all onstage at once. Very inspiring. Listening to him really made me aware of how quickly we synopsize our feelings about leaders into a few summary thoughts. “Democrat. Two terms. Mixed track record. Kinda liked him, kinda not. Reputation tarnished by scandal.” It also made me aware of how our impressions of leaders are almost entirely governed by the sound bites and snippets the media choose to publish. But listening to him speak in complete thoughts, and without having to be on the campaign trail and sell himself, was fascinating. Lives of politicians are so complex, the issues so huge, the problems so multidimensional. The country was left with the impression of a kind of bumbler, and many people forgot just how intelligent he is. But his wit is so quick, his grasp of the big picture so vast.
His main talking point was globalization, and he had a lot to say on that. One of the most interesting things he pointed out was how we took the long view towards Japan and Germany, and poured resources into those countries to help shape the world for the future. If we had just won WWII and left it at that, our relationship to Germany and Japan today would be very different than it is. So what about Afghanistan? It’s not enough to bomb it further into oblivion, and it’s not enough to eliminate Al Qaeda (efforts he supports completely). Taking the long view, we have to pour resources into the Middle East to foster freedom of thought, education, etc. That kind of thing costs us peanuts, and has a huge pay-off for the future. But how much are we talking about that now?
He also made an unusual point about exhaustion. All of our senators and congresspeople, and in fact all the leaders of the world, live under such heavy workloads and under so much continual stress that the world is basically run by walking zombies. Scary thought.
I had felt non-committal about going to this thing, but was really glad I did.
Also got to hang out before the event with the founder and editor of Wired Digital. Had a very interesting conversation about what kind of media is successful today. Now that everything is so specialized – people have 100 TV channels and infinite web sites to choose from – the really successful publications are super specialized and all about lifestyle. Yoga magazine has a huge circ and is fat with ads. U.S. News and World Report is sinking out of view. Slashdot (tech specialized) is doing great, but Plastic (general topics) is struggling. Etc. etc. Interesting.
Bulbo
These are wonderful.
Surrogate
Mentioned a while ago that Amy had a book release party for “Surrogate.” Finally got around to putting the images and essays from the book online today. As I was working with this stuff, was amazed all over again at how good she is, how much I love her work. I’m a lucky guy.
If you have comments on Amy’s photos, please leave them in the LiveJournal account I secretly set up for her : ;)
Lynda Barry
One of my favorite things about Thursdays has always been the Express, one of the three free weeklies we get in the Bay Area. But recently they “restructructured” and removed Cecil Adams (The Straight Dope), Gina Arnold (a music writer who has been with them for a decade) and Lynda Barry, my favorite cartoonist, whose stuff I’ve been in love with since the mid-80s (it used to be called Ernie Pook’s Comeek). The Express is now next to worthless, and Thursday lunches aren’t what they used to be.
Half a year ago Barry was offering to draw a panel “just for you!” for $25, so Amy and I took her up on it and she sent a panel of Marlys tip-toeing upstairs, and even sent a personal note. We gotta frame that one of these days. Fortunately Salon posts Barry’s strip online each week, so all is not lost.